There’s little more than a week to go before Election Day, and with balloting just around the corner, the candidates and the media and many millions of voters are paying increasing attention to the candidates and to the process.
Like much of the rest of this presidential campaign, it’s becoming more contentious – uglier every day, some are saying – with charges and accusations filling the air.
In the latest development that’s making the campaign even louder, the FBI Director sent a letter to Congress saying the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails is being re-opened, because new e-mails have been discovered.
Donald Trump cites the renewed FBI investigation as support for charges that Clinton is corrupt and shouldn’t be allowed to run for President, that the election is rigged, and that there’s a conspiracy against him extending to organizations conducting opinion polls that show his candidacy is losing support.
Regarding the FBI decision the two candidates are in rare agreement, saying that more information is needed to show why, just days before the election, the investigation is being re-opened.
In her campaign speeches, though, Clinton remains on the attack, repeating what she has said all along – that Trump is unqualified for the presidency, that he is temperamentally unsuited for a position of power and authority, and that opinion polls favoring her show that more and more Americans agree with her.
Watching all of this, opinion polls show – as they have for months – that American voters are left with a choice that they don’t particularly like; more than 60% of those polled don’t like or trust either candidate. Should they vote for a billionaire businessman who has declared bankruptcy several times, spoken openly about his sexual prowess, divorced his wives to marry his mistresses, and been accused repeatedly of racial and ethnic discrimination?
Or should they vote for the first woman in US history to run for President, a person the FBI called reckless in her use of e-mail while Secretary of State, the wife of a former President whose own sexual scandals brought about his impeachment, and someone whose judgment and policies have often been called into question? What, a voter might ask, am I to do? Should I vote for him, or for her? Should I throw my vote away on a third-party candidate? Or should I sleep in on Election Day, and not vote at all?
To complicate matters further, the Trump campaign is warning against voter fraud – the prospect of people voting more than once, of votes being cast in the name of persons who are no longer alive, of ballot box stuffing and other deceitful practices. These charges line up with Trump’s claims that the election is rigged and that if he loses it will be because his opponents stole the election.
How do we view all this, and what’s to be done? As to the question of the potential for voter fraud, state election officials, political scientists and most media observers point out that in the past 50 years there have been no documented instances of fraud – close to zero – in elections across the country. Voting procedures in the United States today are more tightly controlled than ever before. Rigid guidelines govern the voting process in every one of the 50 states to make sure that ballot boxes are secure, that computers that are used to compile votes are not vulnerable to internet hacking, that election officials are non-partisan, and that campaigning is not permitted where ballots are cast.
These barriers to individual voter fraud extend to the wider process, preventing the rigging of a national election. With minor variations each of the nation’s 50 states implements its own strict controls over balloting procedures, and are responsible for the integrity of their state and local voting processes. This high degree of modern-day protection of the ballot box in the United States has been built up over the years to ensure the sanctity of a hard-won right that is guaranteed by law to all citizens.
And a hard-won right it is. When the US Constitution was written in the late 18th century, its authors wanted to be sure that individual citizens would elect the people who would govern the new republic. They had just fought and won a revolution to gain this freedom, and wanted to make sure their victory was secure. In those early years, only white land-owning men could vote, and there would be changes in years to come – including a terrible and bloody Civil War. More and more Americans wanted to make sure their own right to vote was secure, and recognized as such in the Constitution.
The 15th amendment was passed in 1866, giving freed African-American slaves the right to vote under a mandate to provide equal protection under the law. In 1913 the 17th amendment called for members of the US Senate to be elected by the people in each state, rather than state lawmakers. In 1920, the 19th amendment guaranteed women the right to vote.
In the early 1950s, the 22nd amendment said presidents could be elected to no more than two four-year terms. The 23rd amendment ensured that residents of the District of Columbia – the nation’s capital – would have the right to vote.
In 1964 the 24th amendment eliminated the poll tax and other taxes used to restrict minority voting. And, in 1971, the 26th amendment lowered the voting age for president and vice president from 21 to 18. Each of these amendments followed extended national debate, required two-thirds approval in both the House and Senate, and ratification by three-fourths of the nation’s state legislatures. Each secured voting rights for significant numbers of American citizens; none were taken lightly.
In this turbulent presidential campaign of 2016, voters are showing they are not inclined to take their choice lightly. Minority and ethnic groups and people of all ages and backgrounds are speaking up.
Absentee votes are being cast in record numbers by people who can’t be at the polls on Election Day – so many that one estimate calls for 40% of all votes, a record number, to be cast before Nov. 8.
Americans may be faced with a difficult, even distasteful, choice, but more than ever they are showing a desire to take advantage of their right – the hard-won right to vote for President.
What will happen next? We can’t be sure… there will be loud arguments and difficult struggles and probably more name-calling and bitterness. It will remind us that freedom, like the right to vote, is hard to gain and hard to keep.
So it has seemed since the beginning of the United States, when one of the founders, Ben Franklin, was asked if America was a monarchy ruled by a king, or a republic in which the people elected their leaders. He replied, “a republic…if you can keep it.” Voters who go to the polls, now and on Nov. 8, will be taking a step toward keeping their republic, and – by their vote – making it stronger.
